Split Fiction

Following a Game of the Year win is one of the hardest positions a studio can be in, and Hazelight Studios, fresh off 2021's widely celebrated It Takes Two, chose to meet that challenge directly with Split Fiction, released 6 March 2025. The premise sends two rival writers, sci-fi author Mio and fantasy author Zoe, tumbling through a machine designed to steal their creative work, forcing them to cooperate across a relentlessly inventive series of shifting worlds to escape. The response has been about as strong as a sequel to a beloved original can hope for: Overwhelmingly Positive across nearly 77,000 Steam reviews. Understanding both why that acclaim is so overwhelming and what a smaller, genuinely thoughtful dissenting minority has to say is what this review sets out to do.

Inventive, constantly surprising co-op design

The single most consistent thread across the review sample is astonishment at how much creative variety Hazelight packed into the game's moment-to-moment design. "One minute you're taming adorable dragons and the next you're fighting as cyber ninjas, escaping terrifying trolls, or dodging hover cars thrown by a robotic parking attendant," the game's own description states, and reviewers consistently confirm that pace holds up in practice. "The amount of cool game mechanics is mind blowing, must play for anyone," one review states simply, while another frames the achievement against the studio's own high bar: "Hazelight is number one at co-op gameplay, and Split Fiction proves it... every section of the game introduces something new, keeping" the experience from ever settling into repetition.

The Friend's Pass model draws its own sustained, specific praise, repeatedly singled out as remarkable given the game's AAA publisher backing. "One person having to buy the game for real is such an unfathomably generous and good thing to add to your co-op game," one review states, a sentiment echoed constantly across the sample. "No microtransactions, a Friend's Pass that lets someone play with you for free, and a track record of great games. They really understand what makes couch co-op special," another notes, framing the policy as consistent with Hazelight's broader reputation rather than a one-off gesture. Several reviewers explicitly credit the value proposition this creates: "When it comes to value for money, this game shows the highest level of respect a studio can have for players. The $50 price tag in 2025 is honestly amazing for a game of this quality," one review states.

Beyond the mechanics, several reviews describe the game as a genuinely meaningful shared experience rather than simply a well-made product. "This was the last game I got to play with my husband before he suddenly passed away. I got to spend 23.5 enjoyable hours playing this game with him. I will forever treasure the time we had," one review states — a deeply personal account that speaks to the kind of connection the game's co-op-only design is built to foster.

A smaller, coherent case for disappointment

Within the roughly 3% of the sample that lands negative, a real, specific and internally consistent argument recurs — almost entirely from reviewers who loved It Takes Two specifically and measure Split Fiction directly against it. "It Takes Two had so much variety and changes in gameplay that it felt like a defining feature of these types of games... Split Fiction is not that at all," one detailed review states, arguing the sequel's variety, while real, doesn't reach its predecessor's specific standard. Character writing draws the sharpest, most consistent criticism within this minority: "The characters are very trope-y and flat compared to their other games... the story is bland," one review states, while another is more pointed: "The two main characters are unlikable. Zoe... is naive and sheltered. Mio... is mean and has a victim complex." That specific criticism — not that the writing is simply weaker in the abstract, but that the two protagonists themselves feel thinly drawn compared to It Takes Two's central couple — recurs often enough across this minority to treat as a genuine, coherent critique rather than isolated dissatisfaction.

A related, more mechanical complaint concerns how collaborative the actual gameplay feels. "For 95% of the game you're just running down a hallway side by side and sometimes opening a door for the other before immediately rejoining. You may as well be playing single player," one review argues, contrasting this with It Takes Two's more famously asymmetric, genuinely interdependent puzzle design. Another frames the concern in terms of challenge: "Good graphics and impressive set pieces are no substitute for actually engaging gameplay. Every moment is predetermined and failure is impossible," a critique echoed by several others describing sections as feeling more like guided set-pieces than genuine puzzles requiring real coordination.

It's worth stating plainly that this remains a minority view within the sample — the overwhelming majority of reviewers, including many with the exact same history playing It Takes Two, describe the opposite experience entirely, several explicitly rating Split Fiction as equal to or better than its predecessor. But the specific, coherent shape of the dissenting view — not vague disappointment, but a consistent argument about character depth and collaborative design specifically — is worth reporting honestly rather than treated as noise beneath an otherwise flawless score.

Where this leaves a buyer

At NZ$79.95 for the purchasing player, with a partner able to join entirely free via the Friend's Pass, Split Fiction delivers one of the most inventive, generously structured co-op experiences available today, and its Overwhelmingly Positive reception is earned honestly across nearly the entire review sample. The single most useful thing this review can tell a prospective buyer, particularly one who loved It Takes Two specifically, is that a small but genuinely thoughtful minority found the writing and character depth a real step down, and the collaborative design somewhat less demanding than that game's asymmetric puzzles. For nearly everyone else — newcomers to Hazelight's catalogue, and the large majority of returning fans alike — this is close to an essential purchase for anyone with a regular co-op partner, backed by a pricing model few studios of this scale are willing to offer.